requiem for a dream
by APKForever
Summary: It is only up to Neil Perry’s guardian angel to make him understand just how much an impact he had on everyone’s lives and how lost they’ll be with out him. But the dream of acting has always been his only comfort and without it he feels he has nothing.
1. requiem of a dream

**Authors note: **

I think many of us can relate to the pain Neil Perry feels in trying to please both his father, and pursue what his heart really wants to do. But we must also come to the realization of our own dreams —even if that becomes a form of retaliation. Neil however never had that chance. In his final moments of his life, he is looking back and thinking of the ones he cares for, and how lost they'll be without him— but when the reality sinks in, it prevents him to accept it—. The dream has always been his only comfort in a suppressive world and without it he feels that he has nothing.

**requiem for a dream**

Neil could feel a hand of idleness reach over his head and pull him down to sleep. It was taking him in and he couldn't see or think or know anything else except that he knew that he was about to start to dream. And as he lay here thinking of possible reasons of why, things were starting to change. When your life flashes, it is not a fraction of time, but a moment where everything stops. Just moments before he was in all his glory. He was the center stage. He was living his dream. He never wanted that moment to change, when he was one stage. He never wanted to forget the joy he brought to his audience—to Todd, to Mr. Keating. He wanted to share that joy with his family, but they weren't here tonight to celebrate with him.

The words sang into the back of his mind, like a choir standing alone on stage—he wore his costume over his clothes in confidence. He spoke his lines with fluidity and never for a second did he falter or feel his knees begin to buckle beneath. He was invincible. But now as he stood there looking up at the little specs of light that shone down from way up high, he saw all of his friends, every one of them standing and staring out as if he wasn't even there. They were frozen like blocks of ice stuck in place, freezing the life where they used to be.

And as he watched them and they stared back blankly, distant and cold from what he used to know like ice forming on the railing of a house in the dead of winter, effecting us more than any words we could ever hear or say or know, he saw his father standing there on the edge, watching him. He hoped to find that by showing up here he might have been the teeniest proud of him, and maybe he finally understood what he has been trying to tell him for so many years, but all he found was dark staring eyes staring straight into his soul, cutting like glass.

And now all that lay before him was an open plane of silence, and a thick fog that enveloped his father's office, like the emerald smoke of apathy circling in the air. He could not even begin to grasp how lonely, scared, and helpless someone must feel in order to take their own life. He could not imagine what must be going through their head the minute before they do. Do they think about their mother? Their friends? Anyone? Are they even thinking about themselves, how many lives they'll change? or ruin?

_So why was he doing this now? Why?_

Neil had everything he ever dreamed about. A perfect and loving family, a beautiful home. A chance to be educated in one of the best schools in his home town. Not everyone had these opportunities and that's what his father wanted him to understand. After he finished medical school and was on his own, then he could do as anything that he damned well pleased but until then he had to do whatever he said.

But what was the point of going to that school for that degree if it wasn't what he wanted to do in his life?

Everyone at one time in their life, feels lost or trapped or afraid to just to go with the flow because of fear of the unknown or success. Children all want to have their parents to be proud of them for something they accomplished themselves.

It's like this time Charlie's friend graduated from school and his parents went out and bought him this brand new fire bird and he loved it of course but it didn't stop him to get a job and then also buy the Voltswagon beatle—even though it was used and putted along everyone else. He felt a small sense of an accomplishment. He went out and he bought this car with his hard earned cash. And it felt so much rewarding.

Neil always wanted to be an actor. It was hard work, but he loved doing it and he wanted it to make it his one true love, like Knox wanted Chris. But his love for theatre was forbidden and he couldn't bring her over for dinner to meet his parents because his father would never approve of them together.

He'd never have the chance for her to come over to watch movies or sleep in his bed if it was too late for her to go home; he could never hold her in his arms forever and whisper sweet nothings in her ear, because his father would disown him and his chances of continuing at the school that he loved so much if he pursued after his love for her.

Theatre to Neil was like the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. The only way they could be together was is in death.

Neil Perry woke up in the snow. He had no shirt on. The thorns he wore for the Shakespearean play were still on his head. He must have forgotten to take it off before he went to bed. The last thing he remembered was opening up his windows in his bedroom and standing there for a good solid 10 minutes just staring out at nothingness.

Was he sleepwalking? He hasn't done that since he was just a little kid.

"Where I am?"

"You're in between worlds." A strange voice spoke behind him.

"What?" He turned around and for a moment he couldn't believe his eyes. She had to be the most beautiful person he's ever laid eyes on and he wasn't just thinking that because he went to an all boys school and felt he had to talk to the first girl that showed him the least bit of attention. He meant that beauty like this was only in fairly tales—the ones with happy endings, except he knew that there was nothing happy about the way this story was going.

"Who are you?"

"Neil Perry. I've come for you." She said. "Follow me."

"Wait...How do you know my name?"

He followed her. They walked in the snow for a little while and then he realized that he was outside the whole time with no shirt on. He was going to freeze to death.

"I'm going to freeze to death out here." He tells her.

"No you won't."

"Miss you realize it's like 30 below out here and I'm practically naked?"

"Do you feel cold?" She asked him.

He thought a moment.

"Uh. Well ironically not at the moment, which I don't know how it's possible. But perhaps I've suffered from hypothermia after I took that nasty fall out my window wearing nothing but this ridiculous crowned thorn on my head."

"And that's how you think it happened?"

"Well I mean… I woke up face down in the snow."

"Do you remember anything about last night, Neil?"

Neil thought really hard. Everything was in bits and pieces. He heard words and voices, saw images but nothing made sense. It felt like everything was like this giant jigsaw puzzle and he to sort through all the pieces to figure out which one fit the best, but he must have knocked some of the pieces onto the floor and his mother accidentally vacuumed them up so then he'll never really get to finish it. They'll always be a missing piece.

_"If you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Carpe. (whispering again.) Carpe. Carpe Diem. Seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary."_

_"I hereby reconvene the Dead Poets Society." Neil begins._

_He reads out a poem._

_"To put to rout all that was not life, and not, when I had come to die,_

_discover that I had not lived."_

_"I've got to tell you what I feel!" Neil leaps up from his seat._

_Mr. Perry stands up._

_" What? What? Tell me what you feel. What __is it?"_

_Neil stood there as if he was facing a blank wall._

_"Nothing."_

_"I'm trapped." Neil says._

_"No, you're not." Keating tells him._

Neil puts his hands to his face. "_What is that... What is that… Where is it coming from?"_

"Oh Captain, my Captain!" Neil blurts out then.

She hands him a long sleeve white collared shirt and he breaks away from all the noise and voices.

"Here. If you think it will make you look more stylish— but before you decide to hire me as your fashion consultant, I'd just like you to know that no one will see you."

"Well thanks, I guess." He looked at her. "But how is that possible that no one can see me except for you?"

"I see everything, but not everyone can see me. I see things that most fail to see or forget is there. As humans, you are the only creatures on this earth capable of empathy: You can _feel_ and understand what others are feeling without actually having felt those things. But an angel is someone who notices all of the things everyone else misses. Life experience is incredibly important, as long as you are open to what it is telling you—."

Neil watched her as she basked within a golden sort of light.

"You're an angel?"

"Yes…" She pauses a moment. "Well… I am on my way to becoming one." She explains. "Let's say I'm attending the "The Welton Academy for Holiness" and apart of the graduation ritual is to 1)… help someone witness a miracle and 2) lead people to the other side and with completion of this final exam, I'll receive a pair of oversized wings I can display with dignity on my back, while you'll receive an oversized diploma your father can display with dignity on his living room wall. And of course both of us would be going places, right? You'll have a chance of being successful in medicine and it'll be easier for me to travel while doing what I love— reaching out to people."

Neil wondered if she brought up the difference with diplomas for a reason. If she was doing something that she loved, than it was more of an accomplishment. But if he went on to that school his father demanded him to go, then his father would be displaying his hard work on the living room wall as if it was his own accomplishments not Neil's.

She starts to walk down a path now. Neil stays behind and watches her. And just like the time Keating on their first day of his poetry class walked out of the room—she turned to look over at him from her shoulder and said, "Well come along."

Neil followed the girl surrounded in the unearthly light.


	2. Footprints

**Footprints**

"_During your times of trial and suffering  
when you saw only one set of footprints..._

_That was when I carried you."_

The angel walked beside Neil. She watched his facial expressions closely. He hadn't spoken a word for such a long time as they walked. He seemed to be concentrating on something that played across his mind like a bunch of images, being modified on the screen, like a movie and there was no way to make sense of it but just watch it over and over again.

Scenes of his life flashed along the sky, like a strew of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics or like those planes that fly past bearing advertisements, while you lay on the beach trying to catch up on your tan but this time it was dragging a giant billboard of Neil Perry's face across the sky.

He saw when he was born, he saw when he said his first word, he saw when he lost his first tooth, when he learned how to ride his bike, his first day at kindergarden and how he learned to read and write and count, add—subtract, multiply and divide. He saw his first date and how nerdy she looked, and how awkward his first kiss was.

He saw his first fight and how afraid he was for his father to find out about it. Even at 10 years old he was afraid of seeing his father disappointed in him.

"Are you alright?" She asked him.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Neil you must be aware of that what we experience in life is the most beautiful foreign film that we don't always understand. But we should still make out in the middle of it and cry at all the best parts." She explains.

"Yeah and I'm sure you've never kissed anyone." He replies smartly back.

"Why would you think that?"

"Well I thought angels were supposed to be all holy and shit like that. You know celibate."

"A scary old nun stuck in some convent in the middle of no where, is that what you mean?"

"Yeah."

"Not always true. We feel things just like anyone else. We may not act on our impulses like humans do but we feel complete love for everyone and everything. You don't have to kiss someone to have the ability to understand them Neil."

"I was being sarcastic. I just don't understand how god or anyone can relate to someone when they haven't actually had the pleasure of walking in their shoes. I am sure if they did, they would be singing a different tune."

"It is logical to feel that way. But I like to "side note" that I wasn't always an angel… or on my way to become one. I was chosen."

"So you had a past life as a human once?"

Yes. Which is way I was sent to you. They told me we had a similar life."

"And your job is to come here and do what? Educate me on the powers of higher learning—or take me back to show me my parents, and I'm meant to go all mindless and blubbery? Forget it. You got the wrong guy."

"I've been sent here to watch over you. I have been sent here to help you make sense of your life."

"I don't have time for this."

"Neil I'm not trying to convince you of anything. It is up to you to get the best of what I am offering you now; I can't make you feel anything that you don't want to feel. I can't make you see anything you don't want to see or hear things that you block from hearing. Look at trying to convince a drug addict that he has a problem and needs to go into a rehab when he is in denial that a problem actually exists. You can give them the best advice that you can ever give but it is only up to them to want to make the first step to get better. If they can't admit they have a problem, than they will never face those demons."

"Well I don't know what you want me to admit, miss angel girl because I am not a drug addict. I am not some bum that you picked off the street, so stop trying to preach to me about how rotten my life was." He takes a deep breath, the cold air swirled around his mouth. "And I thought angels were supposed to make you feel good about yourself."

"It was an analogy, but not necessary meaning to target you. I'm just trying to tell you not to waste your life or throw it away over something stupid."

"You sound like my father and how he thought my passion for acting was a whim and to put it out of my mind for my own good, because he and my mother were counting on me."

"Angels don't discourage ones dreams— but create a pavement for them to reach them."

He sensed she had taken offense to what he just said and realized that he didn't mean to compare her to his father. But he guessed that was how he felt when she was comparing him to the addict analogy after she was only trying to make some point.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't saying that you _were_ my father."

"It's alright. I didn't think you were."

The images of his childhood depreciated and he was now standing in front of a door, except there was no door knob. She tried to push it but it wouldn't budge. She looked at him.

"You are the only one that can open it."

"But how? There is no door knob."

"Remember you must take the first step Neil, not me."

He looked at the door again and placed his hand over it. A door knob appeared. He turned it.


	3. Structure and Discipline

**Structure and Discipline**

When Neil and the angel walked past the rabid crowd of Whelton Academy that fluctuated through the hallways, a freshman chant carried on imminently past them. Neil stood by watching those less fortunate beginngers being tantalized by a hazing of sorts that the graduating seniors felt necessary to do to them. Neil remembered that day thinking that the seniors were so much older than he was. He remembered being so much less knowledgeable and possibly a bit naive for looking up to those graduating as role models. But he always thought about the time when it came to be his turn to be a senior would the new era of Whelton boys look to him and other members of his graduating class with the same admiring eyes? In the end he knew when the time came for everyone to be sad about the seniors leaving he could say honestly, he would not care, not even a bit.

But now this was different. He never even got the chance to graduate with any of his friends, so he couldn't really recount how it felt to finally aspire to new heights. Those seniors were headed out in the world knowning they may or may not make it as planned. It was a scary thought, even then and even more so now.

Mr. John Keating walked into the school, adjusting the cuff linked sleeves of his shirt. Neither the shirt or the cufflinks were expensive, nor was the suit that covered it and they knew of course that he didn't shop at those over priced clothing stores. He said that he felt it was stupid to walk around with the name of some designer on this t-shirt because everyone else was. He wasn't going to show support for someone whose values and beliefs weren't something he was intimately aware of. There were more important things going on throughout humanity than to worry what his friends or co-workers were wearing. It was a lost cause trying to convince them otherwise. To them style was an individuality, no matter how much the price tag was.

Whenever he was asked about clothing he'd stop at nothing to catch the most minuscule of breaths by quoting the disadvantages that clothing designers had on the universe and if they told 92 percent of their loyal buyers that it wasn't, "cool," to breathe anymore, half of them would be dead. Ordinarily, Mr. Keating wouldn't mind about how he looked, but it was important to be taken seriously today. At least he didn't always have to worry about his guilty pleasure of searching for lost loves in dusty second hand stores. His reputation cost more than a costumed- made suit by some famous desinger. Besides the tag was sewn on the inside so how would they have even known the difference?

When it came to clothes, his ideas were perplex/ complicated – he thought of sweaters and poetry and how a favorite quote could easily grab the same attention other than the reeked dismal of failure crocheted between rayon and synthetics. His pressed suit wasn't the sweet, waft of Italian silks and wools with imported cotton. This had thrift shop all over it and it couldn't be washed out no matter how much fabric softener you poured in.

Poetry ought to be memorable, he felt for obvious reasons. Poems should be catchy, should make you want to know them by heart. The single aim of a shirt's slogan is catchiness.

But he always said that, _"The painful truth about Poetry and clothing is the unfortunate fact that the clothing usually sold better than the poetry itself."_

"Who is that?" The angel asked Neil.

"That's Mr. Keating." He was about to choke up on his words. "He was one of the best teachers I've ever had."

Mr. Keating lead his class discussion as usual and whenever he talked they listened. It was the type of respect he demanded on the first day not by grilling fear—but from his love for the written word—his ability to fissure poetry out of the most modest of boys, and his true understanding of a young man's heart. Perhaps if you really listen to what your own voice is saying in given time it will sound like the truth or a barbaric yawp.

"_Truth is like; a blanket that always leaves your feet cold. You push it, stretch it, it'll never be enough. You kick at it, beat it, it'll never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying to the moment we leave dying, it will just cover your face as you wail and cry and scream."_

Todd Anderson opens his eyes. The class is silent. Then they begin to clap and cheer.

"_Don't you forget this." _Keating whispers to him.

It was structure and discipline that we needed the most in life and the spontaneities to deceive evolution by doing something that has never been done before. I mean imagine a teacher making a whole class tear out "The Introduction of Understanding Poetry," by J. Evans Pritchard, because he felt that poetry couldn't be rated like American Bandstand?

Mr. Keating sat upon the edge of his desk. The sunlight lit every pore on his face; he almost appeared angelic, but not as much as the young angel that lay across his desk behind him rolling a pencil back and fourth.

"Will you get down from there?" Neil growled at her.

"Neil _relax_— no one can see us. It isn't live. It's like a re-run , except this sitcom was never aired on television."

"Interesting way to put it but I never viewed my life as a comedy." He tells her.

The pencil fell onto the floor by Cameron's foot. Cameron looked down at it. He bent down, picked it up and handed it back to Mr. Keating.

"Thanks Cam."

"Oui." She replies and puts a finger in her mouth apprehensively. Neil grabbed the angel by her arm and pulled her toward the door.

"_I thought you said this wasn't live?" _He was annoyed.

"Ok. so maybe the pencil fell off his desk 10 years ago. Maybe it was a coincidence. I mean how important is a pencil _really_?"

"The paradox is this: suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveler's grandmother. As a result, one of the traveler's parents (and by extension, the traveler himself) would never have been conceived."

"You're going to kill your grandfather with a _pencil_?" She jokes. Neil gives her a look.

"Alright... enough with the jokes. Here's the deal. They can't see us or hear us. We don't have the power to actually alter the future or anything like that, but like everything there are sometimes small glitches, which will not effect things like you said."

"So you're saying if I _wanted_ I could go over by Cameron's desk, bend down, tie his shoe laces together… so when the bell rings to be dismissed, he'll get up and fall on his face?"

"Perhaps."

Neil thought a moment of this and then a tiny smirk appeared slyly across his face.

"Awesome."

Mr. Keating went on talking to the class. Neil watched everyone now as they paid close attention.

"As a college graduate I was at my prime. I was sure I was going to be heading out in the right direction. I thought I just couldn't have been any smarter, more ambitious or handsome. (I know I am being overly dramatic there.) So what stopped me from staying at my peak? I'll tell you. The world. The work place and school are very different. It's sometimes a parallel plain that can't find a concrete meeting point. You have to start at the bottom and work your way up. Be ready for rejections. I got a rejection letter once from this magazine I was trying to get work of mine published in. The letter said _Revise_ and mail again. And I thought what does revise mean?" He looked at the students. "No really what does (_revise_) mean?"

He let the question float in the air for about a moment or so even after Meeks had blurted "to edit," out from the back of class. It was a question that Mr. Keating was only going to answer himself.

"It _means_ that hard work isn't fun. Writing isn't easy. If you want to be good, you have to work. If you want to have fun, buy confetti and silly string. Cut about 89 percent of your ego and simmer for about a week or month and then write something else. Revision is editing your work till your eyes bleed even with that bachelors, masters degree or PHD. That is a piece of paper with a list of your credentials but it doesn't count as a free plane ride. Rejections are apart of life but so is reaching goals and compromising. If you can't work well with others than you can forget getting that promotion or having an agent finally asking for more than just a cover letter. So what did I decide after I realized that getting what I wanted wasn't as easy as I planned it to be—to quit or to learn from my mistakes and move on?

I had a student once tell me that they just couldn't write poetry. They were only good at Math and Science so that was the reason why they didn't even want to try. I really believe in nurturing young, subtle poets but seriously if you don't want to put in an effort in your work why would I want to even bother to critique a poem of someone who 1) doesn't like poetry and 2) doesn't want to learn how to write it? Is this how you want to live your whole life? By drawing limits around yourself and then pretending those limits define some kind of identity? You must realize how that there's an aesthetic of truth, elegance, symbolism and open-endedness in mathematical sciences. Poetry can produce a similar sense of wonder. I had a girlfriend once who didn't like Chinese food. She liked broccoli and she liked rice, so the waiter brought her steamed broccoli and rice and she swore it made her sick—because it was Chinese food."

Charlie Dalton raises his hand in the air.

"Umm. Mr. Keating…?"

"Yes?"

"Maybe it's because she thought they cooked a cat in the back room, before they brought it out."

Todd and Knox bust out laughing.

"Thanks for that input, Mr. Dalton. I never thought of that."

Neil smiled. He really missed Charlie **a lot**.


	4. Filling in His Brother's Shoes

**Filling His Brother's Shoes **

As Neil and the Angel watched as the next scene unfolded to being outside of Whelton where the infamous Neil Perry crouched down next to Mr. Keating asking him what the Dead Poets Society was, she grabs a hold of Neil's arm and pulls him away.

"Where are we going now?" He asked.

"Before that I'd like you to meet someone first." She tells him.

They arrived in someone's house.

"Where are we?" Neil asked.

"This is a house I visit from time to time. I'd like you to meet someone."

They walked into a living room and saw a girl that couldn't have been more than six years old. She was sitting on the floor brushing the hair of one of her dolls.

"This is Jesseina. I come to see how she is progressing."

"She seems like a healthy little girl to me. What's wrong with her?" Neil asked.

"She hasn't spoken a world since she saw her mother killed a year ago. Ever since then—she sort of just drifted away."

"Poor little thing." Neil felt bad for her. He sat by her. The girl smiled at him for a moment but than kept fixing her dolls hair. "She can see me?"

"Children sometimes can see things that adults cannot."

She knelt down by the girl and stroked her hair.

"Is she an orphan?" Neil asked.

"She lives with her father, uncle and older cousin. She is very close with him."

The young girl's cousin Joseph came in and started playing some games with the girl. The Angel and Neil stood up and walked to the veranda.

"She seems ok at home. She interacts well enough with them here, not with talking but communicating by other means. But her shyness at school prevents her to interact normally. In the classroom she barely speaks a word or raises a hand to answer a question and is subject to ridicule by other students."

Neil turned to the angel and smiled at her. "I remember this time Keating got up and stood on his desk in the middle of the classroom—Charlie thought it was because he felt the need to make himself taller but Keating said that he stood on his desk to remind us that we need to constantly look at things in a different way, even if it might seem silly or wrong at the moment."

"Keating sounds very insightful."

"He was." Neil looked at her for a second. Then he told us that he wanted us to compose our own poem and had to deliver it aloud in front of the class on Monday—And he told my friend Todd, "don't think I don't know that this assignment scares the hell out of you—"

"Why did he think he would have been afraid to do the assignment?" She asked him.

"Because Todd didn't like reading out in front of people. In a way Jesseina sort of reminds me of Todd, because of their shyness."

"Oh."

Neil rested his back against the house wall and looked over at her.

"I know this might be a ratty question to ask now—but what is your _name_?"

The angel shrugged.

"I don't remember it."

"You don't remember it?"

"Well—God always refers us to the name we get when we become angels, but that's until we have completed whatever mission we are sent on. I don't remember what my human name was. Once you are picked, that name doesn't signify who you are anymore."

"Well can I give you a nick name until then? I mean we are going to be spending some time together and it's only systematic to call you something."

"If you want." She says. "But you can always just call me angel."

"I'll call you Angie."

"Why's that?"

"Because it's a bit like Angel but with a bit of variation. I mean Keating did say not to walk off the edge like a bunch of lemmings, dare to strike out and find new ground—

so we need some originality."

"Clever approach."

"Thank you.

"Tell me more about him now."

"Tell you more about who?" Neil asked.

"Your roommate Todd Anderson."

Todd Anderson was a new student at Whelton. His brother had gone there and his brother had been very successful. The principal Nolan had even told Todd that he had some big shoes to fill on the first day. And it was with that success that Todd felt unnecessary pressure for him to fill in shoes that he just did not quite fit in yet or will ever fit in. He had a lot to live up to since his brother had been a perfect child.

Neil emerged from a building and sees Todd and his expression changes when he sees him. It was almost as if he saw him the first time.

"There's Todd." Neil says.

"He's pretty tall for a lad." Angie says.

"Yeah. Cameron said he thought he looked like a stiff."

"_Hey, I hear we're gonna be roommates."_

_He shakes Todd's hand._

" _I'm Neil Perry."_

"_Todd Anderson."_

"_Why'd you leave Balincrest?"_

" _My brother went here."_

" _Oh, so you're that Anderson."_

"Wow. Even I referred him to his brother. Neil shook his head. God if I knew that it really bothered him that much…" Neil and the Angel appear now in the dorm room that both of them were staying that semester. Everyone introduced themselves to Todd Anderson and then they realized that his brother was Jeffrey Anderson-the valedictorian. National merit scholar.

"_It's every bit as tough as they say, unless you're a __genius like Meeks." Charlie tells him._

"_He flatters me. That's why I help him with Latin." Meeks says._

"_And English, and Trig."_

Neil seemed upset with his first meeting with Todd. They walked out into the hallway and he hung his head slow.

"Damn. I wish I made Todd feel more comfortable."

"Despite this first impression—I think you had a lasting impact on Todd, Neil and I mean that in a good way."

"How?" Neil asked. "I made him feel like he had to walk in his brother's shoes and I even almost laughed when Cameron said he looked like a stiff. Who was I to talk about filling anyone's shoes or expecting to be someone that you're not? I mean. My father…" He stopped himself from going any further. He looked towards the wall.

"Come on Neil. Follow me." She insisted they go into the next room. They walk in as the scene slowly unfolded.


	5. The Fear of Writing in Nice Notebooks

**The fear of writing in nice notebooks**

"You have to keep trying even if that means undertaking different ways on getting your point across. I am trying to think of the perfect advice for all of you. I think this might be it: Don't write summaries of it. Write it. For an example—what you've got right now is like:

Mr. Keating wrote on the board.

_I was sad because my desire was not given to me. I was thinking about a piece of candy no one wanted. I bet candies get sad, too, sad and wistful like me.  
_  
"Someone reading this might ask--"

He contuined to write on the black board.

1) _What do you do when you are sad? _

_2) What was it you desired, and what happens when you desire it?  
3) What made you think about a piece of candy?  
4) How can you tell no one wanted the candy?  
5) What is a sad candy?  
6) What makes the sadness of a candy like the sadness you feel?  
7) What are you wistful about and why did sadness plus candy equal wistful?_

"Well, why not write a poem that answers those questions in the first place, and answers them with images, not just other adjectives. For example—  
_What is a sad candy?"  
a brooding, forgotten candy __**BAD**__  
a candy on a bench, washed through until the sugar and even the dye has left it __**BETTER**_

"So this is what I mean when I say "look" and "see."

He turns around towards the class and watched everyone as they wrote notes down on what he was saying.

"The assignments I expect everyone to have completed for class along with whichever other assignments I ask of you is to _write_ every day in this journal." He held out those black and white speckled journals sound at drugs stores and supermarkets for 2 dollars or more. "Write poems—use different formats, study styles from other poets or create your own style. Write prose, (long or short) but not a novel because I can't afford to get you another notebook."

Neil smiled and took one of from the stack Keating placed on the desk and handed the rest behind him. Todd didn't seem so thrilled with the idea. Knox muttered to Pitts that he was going to write only Sonnets about Chris. Charlie turns to Knox and mutters, "_Pretty Pathetic."_

"This won't be graded on ability, grammar or syntax but if you don't bother to do it, than you will receive a zero. You could take it home and write—write in at study hall, or at the end of class—write it on your grandmother's apron, whatever. But I expect you to have something every Friday. You could start by writing your name on the inside jacket, class and period—Incase they get lost. But I have the highest regards that you will guard these with your life."

After class was over, Neil sits on the heater and while Todd writes in his new notebook that Keating gave him. He asked Todd if he was going to the Dead Poet's Society meeting this afternoon. Todd wasn't really thrilled that he was apart of the club to begin with. Neil felt that nothing that Keating had to say in class mattered to him. Neil told Todd that he wanted him to be apart of the club and it would mean more to him if he actually did something, instead of just sitting there. Todd appreciated his concern for getting him to be apart of things but he was perfectly fine with his own life and told him to butt out of it. But Neil wouldn't let Todd win this argument.

"_No." _

"_What do you mean, "no"?" Todd asked._

_A smile comes to Neil's face._

"_No."_

_Neil grabs Todd's notebook of poetry and runs across the room with i__t. Todd leaps up after him._

"_Give me-- Neil. Neil, give that back." _

The two begin racing in circles around the room, jumping from bed to bed as Todd tries to grab his poem back.

_"We are dreaming of a--" Poetry! I'm __being chased by Walt Whitman! Okay, __okay." _

Neil was laughing hysterically. He couldn't catch his breath. "Shit. Shit. Shit. Man. That was too funny." Neil slid along the wall. "God I was such a ball buster." He had tears in his eyes, not from crying but from laughing so hard. Angie bent down next to him and wiped the corners of his eyes with her long white sleeves.

"The Dead Poets Society." She says. "Tell me about them."

"All DPS was, was just a bunch of guys having secret meetings in a cave and reading out poetry."

"So what was wrong with that?"

"Nothing."

"Well it seemed like it meant a lot to you— maybe more so than it meant to Todd. But perhaps because you influenced him to be apart of the club and interact with them, helped him understand himself better."

Neil was very quiet now and he watched her, trying to comprehend what she was saying.

"Angie….I just don't see that as encouraging someone else." He finally said. "Besides any learning experience was from Keating. He did that when he helped him recite the poem in the classroom." Neil tells her. "What did I have to do with it?"

The angel walked around the dorm room and towards the window. She stared out of it and turned to face Neil again.

"By Nagging. By encouraging him. By including him in DPS. Throughout the years of our lifetime, we all go through many changes. One day we may act this way, the following day we may act another. We go through life letting others influence us in good and bad ways, and they are all learning experiences. What one person does for another, whether it is really big or really small has a lasting impact."

Angie shows him where he discovered the book Keating has stored away in his desk. And then brought him back to where he asked Keating what The Dead Poets Society was. "Keating told you that it wasn't just "guys," reading poetry. And I know you believed that more than anything." She told him.

Neil sort of blushed a little.

"Ok maybe I sort of helped … but most of the credit goes to Keating. But why are you so… fixed on making me see those impacts I might have had on my friends? What does it matter now?"

"Neil… because once you take your life, you are admitting that you had no impact on anyone. You are admitting that you are meaningless. You are giving god a call and telling him that you wished you were never born."

"Wait. Wait. Wait…a minute. Angie, I did not kill myself."

"Then how did you die?"

"I told you… I must have fallen out of my window."

"But you don't remember falling out."

"I don't remember killing myself either."

"Neil. It happened. You must accept it."

"Accept what? Are you telling me that I was depressed? Are you telling me that I gave up everything… and for what?"

"Because of your father not believing in you."

"Angie! My father loved me!" Neil grabbed a hold of her by her arms and shook her very hard. She fell backwards into the bookshelf and a few books came tumbling out.

A book fell on Cameron's foot, while he was looking over some Trig with Todd and Meeks.

"Dammit."

He pounded on the wall beside him.

"Charlie stop humping the goddam walls!"

Todd stood up from his bed and walked over and started to put them back. Neil's ghost watched Todd and then knelt by Angie to help her back up.

"I'm sorry." Neil said. "You are just trying to get me to admit something that I am just not ready to admit. And I guess when you are in denial, nothing the other person has to say will make much of a difference."


	6. Encountering a Pearl

**Encountering a Pearl**

Today's discussion at the Dead Poet's society meeting was what helped them when they felt uninspired. An obstacle for any professional writer was that sometimes you have to sit down and write when you don't really feel like it. What do you do to try to get the creative juices flowing when you sit down to write and feel, uninspired? Do you have some kind of personal ritual (eg. make tea, read the news, spend 10 mins free-writing, go for a walk?)Or do you just leave it and come back when you do feel more inspired?

Meeks started:

"If there's nothing that needs doing and I _must_ write, I try to figure out what needs to happen in the next scene. I don't normally do much planning on paper -- I hold a lot in my head, and figure out a lot of details as I go -- but sometimes I really do need to sit down and decide what the character is doing, why they're doing it. Figuring that out can help enormously. Failing that, I just force myself to put words on the page. They may be lousy words, but I may eventually get into the flow of it and produce something worthwhile."

"I think of ways of how to avoid telling my father that I have been "acting" behind his back." Neil says jokingly.

"Sometimes it means I need to pick up a brand new notebook with great paper that lets ink flow across the page." Todd says. "But I have a fear of writing in nice notebooks because I know I will just mess it up or have Neil steal it from me and run around my room like a frigging idiot."

Neil cracks up.

"Sometimes it means I need to sit in front of a real, honest to goodness typewriter." Pitts adds. "Or it means I need to lock myself away with coffee and a bunch of resource materials to make notes."

"Sometimes it means I need to smoke clove cigarettes and walk." Knox says. "Well maybe to a pay phone to call Chris."

"So she can hang up on you again?" Charlie asks him.

"Yes. There is nothing more satisfying than rejection."

"I certainly don't need cigarettes to write, but they provide an excuse to leave my desk." Charlie says.

Knox kept talking about Chris now. Whenver he said her name it was like he just took a breath from a bottle of a expensive perfume. It was intoxicating to him, but it was nauseating to everyone else. "God I can't stop thinking about her. It's like her image is embedded in my mind or something. I feel if I can't have her as my girlfriend, I could just kill _myself_."

"Maybe if you write a poem about that she'll feel bad for you." Neil tells him.

"Bring it to her school next time and read it out to her." Todd suggests.

"No, you are a much better poetry reader than I am Todd." Knox makes a pun.

Cameron had enough of Knox's Chris talk.

"Get over yourself Overstreet. That girl thinks you are an idiot."

"Shut up. Cam." Knox says. "What do you know about love anyway?"

"I know better than to fall for a girl that has a boyfriend. And besides didn't you address her as Mrs. Danburry? Seriously, you think any girl is going to want the guy that mistook her for her boyfriend's mother?" He mimics the scene. _"Uhh..Mrs. Danburry? Um. No. I just like to dress like an old lady."_

"Well if Mr. Danburry was smart he'd be going for those younger girls." Charlie makes a point.

"Well ok back to the subject of writing." Neil brings up now. "I don't think that becoming an alcoholic or a chain smoker is a good way to become a good writer. I think it's ok to indulge in vices once in a while; but it's not ok to become a slave to them. One has to understand the concept of moderation, I think. Plus, there's the inherent danger that people get hung up on living like a writer instead of actually writing." Neil says.

"Very good insight, Neil." Angie punches him playfully in the shoulder.

"Thanks." He shrugs.

"Wow… that is something Keating would have said. Very powerful, Perry." Knox folds his arms against his chest.

"Hey I learn from the best."

"I HOPE writing isn't all about gift or talent, or I'm screwed." Todd replies.

"Don't worry Todd. There is hope…even for people like you." Neil hugs him and shakes him. Todd laughs and playfully pushes him away.

"Alright. Alright. Guys. Isn't this club about reading poetry?" Cameron asks.

"Um. Obviously." Charlie replies back.

"Well I wrote something last night."

"Ah. Good. Good." Neil says. "Let's all sit around and listen to Cameron's poem."

"I made copies for everyone so they could read along."

"How generous of you." Charlie replies smugly.

Everyone gets around in a circle. Cameron clears his throat, reads off the title and continues on. They all sat their trying to seem engrosssed in what he was reading while trying keep a straight face. However, Charlie and Neil just couldn't hold it in. They burst out laughing first. Cameron looked up.

"What is it?"

"You know those people in English classes who seem all pretentious and full of shit? You may not be one of them but writing poems titled "a winter's unrequited love," sure makes you seem like one." Charlie tells him.

"Are you wearing a turtleneck right now? If so take it off." Knox says.

Neil and Todd both start laughing hysterically.

"Melodramatic." Neil sighs.

"If someone you knew had written this and described it to you as you were sitting there over coffee and such, try to tell me you would be impressed. You'd tell them to their face, "_oh yeah it's a nice piece of work_," but secretly you would have thought you could have done it better." Pitts explains.

"I think you have interesting moments, but it is more than a bit like encountering a pearl while pumping sewage." Meeks said.

"Good luck finding that." Charlie raises a sly eyebrow and glances at Neil.

"The Dead Poet's Society is full of ass-holes who feel the need to disparage people in order to feel good about themselves. Clearly." Cameron says.

"Well if you really feel that way, you can leave." Charlie told him a matter of fact.

"Whatever. It's just a comment on my part, a discussion I'm having with someone who obviously is too immature in having it back. That's quite fine by me. I'm forced awake at night and have nothing else to do but monologue."

Cameron sighs and plops down next to Meeks.

"Man. I feel a bit bad now." Neil looks at Angie.

"How so?"

"For making Cameron feel so out of place. I mean I know he is an idiot most of the time, but still. It took a lot for him to read it. The poem wasn't Walt Whitman material but we made The Dead Poet's society not because of Walt. We made it because writing poetry is about being members of the human race and we are all allowed to contribute a verse no matter how sappy it sounds in real life. The fact we take the time to write it should be enough. I remember one summer I had debate with Cameron. He argued that in order to be a good writer, a person needs to be objective and slightly withdrawn from their surroundings to successively write about their experiences. He was kind of a jerk but he brought up an interesting point, and I've thought about what he said from time to time. I think it's impossible to write something meaningful and good if you breeze through life and never experience it. Life experience is incredibly important to writing. But it must be coupled with attention to those experiences. I've known people who have traveled the world without ever feeling inspired to write one word down, because they've been too focused on gaining experience instead of noticing what is unique about each one."


	7. The Allegory of the Cave

**The Allegory of the Cave**

Mr. Keating had everyone read a line from the Allegory of the Cave by Greek Philosopher Plato. Angie was excited about this peice exclaiming that she had enjoyed it very much when she read it for an assigment. Neil turns to her and said, "You don't get out that much do you?" Angie sighs. "Unfortunately no."

Neil watched the teacher closely, awaiting his turn. When Keating nodded his go ahead, Neil looked down into his textbook and began to read aloud.

_"…. "Here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets." _Neil looks ups and takes off his glasses.

"From their _childhood_ boys." Keating walks down their isle. "Imagine a number of men living in an underground chamber, with an entrance open to the light, extending along the entire length of the chamber, in which they have been confined, from their childhood, with their legs and necks so shackled, that they are obliged to sit still and look straight forward, because their chains render it impossible for them to turn their heads round: and imagine a bright fire burning some way off, above and behind them, and an elevated roadway passing between the fire and the prisoners, with a low wall built along it, like the screens which conjurors put up in front of their audience, and above which they exhibit their wonders. Now class what does this all mean to you?"

They sat in silence. Angie whispers to Neil as if he hadn't just heard the question. _"Mr. Keating wants to know what you think it means?"_

"Angie, I may be invisible but I'm not deaf." He reminds her.

Keating waits for the pause and then starts with his own interpretation.

"I believe this was a description on how people were prohibited to learn and grow intellectually or have the benefit of having their own mind, their own dreams, their own desires—they were only to committed to one particular room—where they have become products of their environment. Those people were made to believe that the light on the other end would burn them if they'd look at it for too long. Was it there fault that they have been sheltered or segregated all their lives? NO! But it is up to them to fight for what they believe in, even it means _making_ a "martyr" out of themselves. Sometimes we have to. Sometimes we have to suffer for our dreams. It takes one person to make a difference and for others to follow their example. The essential point I'm trying to make, boys— is that the prisoners in the cave are not seeing reality, but only a shadowy representation of it. The importance of the allegory lies within the belief that there are invisible truths under the apparent surface of things which only the most enlightened can grasp."

"I don't get it." Cameron says.

_"Why doesn't he get it?"_ Angie asks Neil.

_"Because he's Cameron."_ He explains to her. _"Enough said."_

"What don't you get?" Pitts looks at Cameron as if he had two heads."Keating just explained what it was about."

"I understand _his_ explanation. But I don't understand why these people being treated like frigging cattle?"

"Because they are prisoners, you idiot. What prisoner do you know gets to eat like a king and gets to watch all the television they want?" Knox asks.

"Knox, I'm just asking, how does this compare or relate to us now?"

"Shut up, meat head."

Charlie covers his face in his hand, apparently bored with the class or irritated by Cameron's idiocy. "Cameron when your head is about 18 inches from your desk face down-- proceed to mash your forehead as quickly and as hard as you possibly can into the desk. Repeat at random intervals. Hard woods are best, each impact gives you the more bang for your buck."

"Shut up Dalton." Cameron says back.

"Boys—boys. Cameron asked a question. How does the Allegory relate to us now? How are we prisoners of our own creations? Are we held back from certain dreams or realties by our parents, by our teachers, by the society that we are brought up in? Is there a young lad that you know that doesn't have the same advantages or opportunities as we have in this room? Maybe his parents aren't well off. Maybe he had to work right after school to support his brothers and sisters because of this situation or because he lost his parents at such an early age. Beyond that reality does that boy/man see life other than the one he knows? Maybe to him it doesn't exist because he was refused to see it—or he refuses to believe it's there. Like the dream of becoming a doctor or an actor or an engineer? Does his parents or friends support his decisions or are they against it?"

Keating reaches far down into his pocket and pulls out a shiny object. He hands it to Cameron. "Here take this."

"A key?" Cameron looked at him.

"Yes. It's a key. Tell me what this key signifies to you? What does a key do?"

"Opens a lock?" Pitts blurts out. Meeks gives him a thumbs up.

"It opens your future!" Keating steps upon on his desk. "Pass the key on. Unlock yourselves from the goddam shackles the world has fettered us with. Set yourself free! Hurry up! Help your brothers out! Pass on the key! Time is too short to be another fly on the wall waiting until someone has either come to let you out the window or smack you with a fly swatter! We are men for goddsakes! Stand up for what you believe in!"

"Yeah!" Charlie hollers. He takes the key from Todd. Todd handed it to Knox. Knox handed it to Neil.

As Neil watched himself twirled the shiny medal between his index finger and thumb, he thought only of one key—the one that unlocked his father's safe and wondered if that _was his only freedom?_

They all passed the key until it was handed back to Keating. He smiled and took it.

"Thanks." Keating looked at all of them standing on his desk. He knew the bell was going to ring soon for them to be dismissed, so he ended class with telling them not to loose the key to their hearts or dreams because once it is lost, it usually cannot ever be found again.

Neil couldn't or didn't want to believe how a good deal of this literature in B.C. reflected so much of his own life now. But it did.

"What is it about your father that you are so afraid to admit?" The Angel turns to Neil now. He looked at her but didn't answer her question.

Neil saw himself coming up the stairs as everyone else swarmed down to the cafeteria. He was reciting lines from the play that he just went to rehearsal for. He opened his dorm room door and was taken aback with the sight of his father sitting at his desk.

_"Father."_ His father sits up from his desk.

"_Neil."_ He replies back.

Ok so far for the greeting, weird…. Kind of unexpected but seriously, what was he doing in his room? What did he want? What did he do? Should he have been worried? The silence in the room now was thick and over powering.

"_Wait a minute. Before you say anything, please let me expla—"_ Neil starts.

"_It's bad enough that you've wasted your time with this absurd acting business…"_ His father jumped up out of his seat. _"But you deliberately deceived me! How, how, __how did you expect to get away with this? Answer me. Who put you up to it? Was it this new man? This, uh, Mr. Keating?"_

"_No. Nobody-- I thought I'd surprise you. I've gotten all A's in every class."_

"_Tomorrow you go to them and you tell them that you're quitting_."

"_No, I can't. I have the main part. The performance is tomorrow night." _

His father told him that he didn't care if the world came to an end tomorrow night, he was through with the play. He made a great many sacrifices for his son to get here and he wasn't going to let him ruin his chances or let him down. All Neil could do was stand there and let him ruin his chances of living his dream.

"It's open." Keating says from his desk.

Neil enters and closes the door behind him. He appears to be nervous.

"Neil, what's up?"

"Can I speak to you a minute?"

Neil remembers going into Mr. Keating's room to tell him how his father was making him quit the play at Henley Hall and how he had this obsession of planning his future and not caring about what he wanted. Keating asked if Neil has ever spoke to his father and actually told him what he wanted. But he couldn't. He couldn't talk to him at all. It was always, yes sir. No sir. I understand Sir.

Neil—you are quitting the annual. Yes Sir.

Neil-you are not going to do a Mid Summers Night Dream are you? No Sir.

Neil—are you going to disobey your mother and I? No Sir.

Neil—you understand why we are doing his? It's for your future! I understand sir.

Keating said by not talking to his father like he talks to him, is putting on his own theatrical play with the part of a dutiful son—But the presence of the eclipse, creates only an illusion to what is real and what isn't. Lies will cover up what they don't want to be known, trying to hide the truth away. But they will eventually deteriorate, disappear; they cannot cover it forever. It is like a cloud passing over the moon, it makes it foggy, creates a film, a thin cover that blocks it from our view. You can hide in it for a little while, but eventually what was hidden in the darkness will be revealed again with the sun.

Neil saw how a tear slid down his own cheek. He wipes it away.

"_I'm trapped."_ He told Keating.

"_No you're not."_

Neil couldn't watch this scene any longer. He turned away.

"God. Why does my father have to preach about everything?"

"Why did you let him?" She asked. "You didn't have the drop the annual you know or be afraid to attend the play."

"How would have I managed to do that?"

"You could have did it without him knowing about it."

"Angie did you see what happened? My father has a way of finding everything out. He just walks right into it, not even trying to look for it. And I'm the one that becomes the scared little goat backed into a corner. Yeah… Todd was right when he said that I should have been careful with this whole acting business. He knew my father would never have approved of it. I felt that if I didn't ask my father if I could do the play than I wouldn't have been disobeying him. I—I just wanted to bask in the thought of being in the play and enjoy the idea for a little while."

"There was no reason to feel you had no way out."

"There you go again with this killing myself business. Angie please."

"Neil… you are passionate about theater. You have always been passionate about it. I have seen the joy it brought you and your friends. And that should have been enough. Theater was your one true love and she was denied to you. So you felt that you had to take your own life because without her you felt you had no more meaning?"

The moment's image came back to him. He clasped the side of his head. For a split second he felt the pain as the gun went off and fell to the ground, gasping for breath. In seconds he was gone.

"I can't. I _can't_."

"Neil.. What can't you do??"

"You understand nothing! I had no choice. I had to let go."

"_Why??"_

"Because I am nothing without her!"

"You sound like Knox now, when he felt that he had no life without Chris. You cannot make someone love you if they don't. You cannot let a passion control your life or allow it to end it. When you put love or passion before principal, no matter if it is right or wrong, you will loose."

"I did. Now let me be."

"Neil, if that key for your father's safe was your only freedom, … than how come you are stuck here now?"


	8. What Am I Supposed to Do?

**What am I supposed to do? **

Neil was sitting on a rock facing a bridge where the sun shot its rays down through it's rippling waters. He picked up a smaller rock, a pebble and tossed it into the lake.

"I don't want to think about anything anymore… I don't want to think about my life or how I ended up here. I just feel things are better the way they are now. If I cannot be an actor, than I don't want to do anything. I would have been just a nuisance to my father anyway. I could not live up to his expectations so I did him a favor."

"But Killing yourself wasn't an option."

"Yeah well I'm sure there are some exceptions to that rule."

"Neil you cannot believe that your death didn't mean anything to your family or friends, do you? I don't believe that not for one bit."

"I am not saying that Angie. Not at all. I am just questioning things now. I mean if god was me, what would he have done— If he had a father that wouldn't listen to reason?"

"I'm sure if you asked him, he would have told you that he would have talked to someone like you should have. Going to Keating again would have been the better solution."

"I talked to Keating before. What good would it have done if I went to him again? What was he going to do, step in and let me stay at his house and pay the rest of my way through Whelton? I had a better chance of running away and joining the circus."

Neil thought a moment to himself. "That's it!" He grabs a hold of Angie's shoulders."That's it! Thanks for coming all this way to tell me!"

"What's it?"

"I should have joined the circus!—at least I'd get to perform in front of people. I might look ridiculous dressed up as a clown, but I am sure it couldn't be any worse than my costume for A Mid Summer's Night Dream. And maybe I'd get a bonus for introducing them to Cameron. I think he'll pull off "_Ape boy_," pretty well." He sort of chuckles to himself.

Angie shakes her head and let's out a big sigh. A desperation attempt that she realized that there was nothing she could do to help this young man if he didn't want to help himself. "Oui…I could have really used those wings, you know. Beats having to wake up for the morning commute." She turned towards him now. "Isn't there one thing that you've learned from all of _this_?"

"Yes. I made a mistake and I have to dwell with my own shit."

"No Neil. I wasn't sent here to tell you that."

"I already know it's too late for me. What's done is done. I made my choice. I will not yield to think otherwise of it so just leave me alone."

"Fine."

Suddenly the scene began to change.

Neil was standing in a stranger's house. A man was sitting at the dinning table with a younger man. It looked like they were getting ready to eat dinner.

"Angie where are we?"

A young girl no older than 17 years old emerged from the kitchen bearing two plates. She placed them down on the table along with cups. The young girl had long dark hair; strands of it hid her face away. She kept tucking pieces of it behind her ear.

"You call this vegetation a meal after a ten-hour workday? What the hell am l, a rabbit? Christ, try to think a little more."

_Yeah, I can think. I can think of how sick I am... of watching you drink your life away...and taking it out on me._

Neil could hear her thoughts without her actually speaking them.

"Wait… how am I… She just said?"

"I'm talking to you, Jesseina." The man started in again. "Are you awake or what?"

The girl turned away and went to go get her own dinner plate from the kitchen.

"Jack, don't start." The younger boy said from his seat.

"Start what? Telling the little daydreamer to wake up? Joseph, it's long overdue."

"l don't need this aggravation." The boy tells him.

"That's Jesseina?" Neil looked surprised that she grew up so fast. "Boy her old man is really a piece of work." He saw Jesseina come back in and sat down. She took a sip from her lemonade and moved some of her hair from her face. He could see her better. "Wow I'd never think that she would have looked as beautiful as..._You_..?"

Neil turned around. "Angie?? Where did you go?"

He started to run throughout the house.

"Angie! No! No! Angie you cannot leave me here!" He pounded on the walls. "Come back!"

Jack looks up from his plate. "What the hell was that?"

"Probably just the kids playing outside." Joseph says.

"Damn those kids."

"Angie! Please! I'm sorry!" Neil fell to his knees and started crying in his hands. _"What am I supposed to do? What Am I supposed to do?"_


	9. Knock, knock on Heaven’s Door

**Author's Note: **_After Angie __mysteriously _disappers, Neil Perry is now left in charge of the now 17-year old Jesseina Clarkson, whose own life is headed towards a downward spiral.

**Knock, knock on Heaven's Door**

_"A long, long time ago. There was a young girl with a problem. She was hurt in the past by a man… Justice never was served and she ended up turning to the dark side. She had no solace. She had no meaning in her life. She felt like she was like this ghost in her dreams for so many years, flickering and white and blurred at the edges. She hurt herself once…She was given a second chance. Everyone around her that cared for her tried their best to make her happy, but the only person that could make her happy was herself and as long as she denied that, no one else could get in. The second time she hurt herself, she succeeded that time. __But the problems didn't go away. And now she had to dwell with those undying mistakes, which surrounded her in complete darkness._

_Then one day out of nowhere she heard a knocking on her door. She opened it and to her surprise, it was the lord. And he said, "My daughter. I loved you. I always have. I always wanted the best for you. Please come with me now and let me show you the light— and get rid of all the darkness and pain from your life so you can be free."_

_"You see …Neil, god was always there, even when she was stuck paying for her unforgivable mistake. God is always knocking on your door but it is only up to you to open it and let him in. Now will you let him in?"_

"Angie?" Neil looked from where he lay in the hallway. "Angie are you _there_?"

He swore that she was really speaking to him, but then realized that it was only a dream. He turned over on his side and watched as Jesseina opened her bed room door and walked over holding a basket of laundry. Already he knew the type of life Jesseina lead in only two days that he has been here. It was hard for him to grasp it and make sense of it, perhaps because he hadn't come to terms with his own life and he didn't understand the reason he had to be stuck here right now. Was it his punishment or a lesson that Angie couldn't show him herself?

Neil also had to go to school with Jesseina and it was an experience he wish he never had the gratification of experiencing. He couldn't understand how other people could be so inconsiderate of others or so selfish. People knocked books out of her hands. They pulled pranks on her when she wasn't looking. They laughed at her over everything she did or said. They made fun of her for not speaking and living with an alcoholic father. They made fun of her for trying to audition for the school plays saying that no one will be able to hear what she is saying if she is saying anything at all. Even the theater teacher made a comment to her once: "Jesse, remember the old deaf lady in the back." and Jesse responded with, "If she knows that she is hard of hearing, than maybe its better if she sat in the front."

Neil found that funny.

The school play they were putting on was Hamlet. Jesseina wanted the part of Ophelia, really, really bad. She felt that she knew her character quite well. She collected things that reminded her of her. She had paintings of her by various artists on her walls She wrote a poem once about her for her creative writing class. But of course they ripped it to shreds.

"_Personally I was rather bored with the descriptions you offered us. Nothing stood out that well. It's missing something—like the fact that, Ophelia poems are so overdone, and you fail to reinvent anything here. So maybe before writing poems or anything involving Ophelia, you could do yourself a favor by drowning yourself first."_

Something like that would have been funny saying to Cameron or Meeks or Charlie for that matter, but it was rude saying it to a 17-year old girl that just only wanted acceptance. The guidance counselor talked to Jesseina a lot, sometimes even when she didn't want to talk. It was mainly over her home life, her mother and the way she was treated at school. It seemed like she was pretty strong despite everything that was happening around her.

"I really, really like to try out for this part." Jesseina says looking over the pamphlet.

"Of course you'd want to try out for that." A boy in the auditorium remarks snidely. "You probably are on the verge of going crazy yourself. Make sure you wash your hands clean before you walk on the stage."

"That's from Macbeth you idiot." Another boy tells him. The boy looks over at her and tells her to ignore him.

"When will she ever quit? No one is going to give her a main role." A girl makes a remark behind her back.

Neil sat there next to the girl as she blandly made fun of her. After the bell rang to be dismissed, Jesseina shook her head and got up to leave. While she walked down the hallway the boy that stood up for her before, followed her.

"Hi." He stands in front of her. "I'm Robert." He puts his hand out for her to shake it. "I don't think we've been properly introduced."

"No. Perhaps not. But I do know you are a football player and we've been attending the same schools since kindergarten. Also I sit at the reject table at lunch, which you feel it's comical to toss half eaten pieces of sandwiches at the back of my head."

She walked away.

"Jesseina. Wait." He stood in front of her again. "I'm sorry if I've come off as a snob to you."

"Not just you." She says. "Your friends have this notion that I will make a complete fool out of myself over everything I do. And maybe they're right about that but I should have the same chance to try out than any body else. And I guess that's a lot coming from someone that used to be considered a mute."

Robert stood there watching in disbelief as she stood up for herself and made herself known. Perhaps that was the reason why she wanted to be in theater so much to be able to surprise people and to be heard.

"Well I don't have the slightest doubt that you won't get this part." He tells her. "I am trying out for Hamlet, I am a bit nervous about it. I was wondering if you are not busy…maybe we can run lines together or something."

Jesseina looked surprised and her face sort of turned a slight shade of pink.

"Um. Well. That does sound like a good idea. Maybe we could guide each other."

They exchanged numbers.

Neil saw the joy Robert recently brought her and he was glad, but also he was a little uneasy about her accepting him so quickly. Right now Jesseina was quite vulnerable and was easy to prey on. He didn't want to think of this guy as being a potential harmful influence on Jesseina but it was pretty hard to see someone as popular as he and who used to mock her like everyone, just have a change of heart so suddenly. Robert called her house pretty much every day. They exchanged lines every other day. He asked her to meet him after football practice and he took her out to eat once in a while. It was sort of like the situation with Knox and Chris, well after he was done stalking her and Chris decided to leave her boyfriend to be with him. Neil only wanted the best for Jesseina and he really wanted her to be able to live her dream of doing a play. Seeing someone else really enjoy it made him remember what he loved about it so much and it also made him a little sad too.

After Jesseina finished eating her lunch in the living room and walked into the kitchen to throw away her trash, she looked toward her left and saw that there was no bag in the garbage can, so she threw it away in the other pail. She was thinking she should put one in. But before she could get a chance to, Jack had to open his mouth.

" I knew what you would do." He had said to her. " This is why we butt heads. Why can't you put a bag in the other one?" he snapped at her. Jesseina didn't say anything. She wasn't in the mood to fight over something so stupid. _What's the difference who puts a bag in or not? You can't even give me a chance to move from one place to another. _Doing the right thing, Jesseina placed a garbage bag into the can. Jack shakes his head. "You shouldn't have to be told."

Jesseina stopped what she was doing and looked up at him, her eyes stared through him. She walked slowly toward the kitchen sink and started to wash out her bowl and fork.

" Shut the dam water off! I'll knock you out!" He threatened her.

Jesseina quickly shut the water off and looked at him puzzled.

"For what?"

"You're wasting water."

She glanced at her uncle who was then fixing something to eat. He didn't look at her. Did he hear? She wondered. She turned around and glared at Jack.

" First you yell at me for not washing the dishes after I'm done with them, then you yell at me for washing them out." She spoke. "Make up your mind."

" Get the hell out of here." Jack snarled at her. Jesseina looked at her silent uncle feeling the urge to cry. She ran into the living room then and crouched by the wall. She hid almost like she was apart of the shadows. There was no trace of her being there at all. Just the sounds of silent sobbing echoing through her body. She sat there and listened.

Jack snarled at his brother in law who stood against the counter.

" I hate her. Sometimes I wish she wasn't even my daughter."

" God. Jack. _Why do you have to be so hard on her_?" Thomas asked. Jack stood up and slammed the back door. Jesseina was standing there wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Hey Joseph." Jesseina came up into his apartment later that night. He welcomed her in and shut over the door. "What are you doing?"

"I was just watching some television. You are welcome to watch some with me if you like." He tells her.

Jesseina sat on the couch with her older cousin watching some reruns of The Honeymooners. Neil was sitting in an easy chair with his legs crossed over one another watching the two of them interact with each other. They talked a lot whenever they had the chance.

"Don't take what your father says so personally." He tells her. "He doesn't know what he says half the time anyway."

"Well it's senseless in arguing with someone that can't really argue back." She tells him. "Two nights ago when he barked at me over what I made him for dinner, I took into consideration that it was something healthy for him. If he wants to drink himself to death, than that is his own problem. It probably would do all of us some good if he croaked right now anyway."

"I'll second that." Neil mutters under his breath.

"Don't say that." Her uncle passes her by in the hallway.

"Have you tried out for the school play yet?" Joseph asked her now.

Jesseina went to say that she auditions for every play they have but she never gets the part or "any," part for that matter. They just like to stick her in the back with the costumes. Joseph said maybe this time it would be different. She shrugged and said they choose mainly people with more popularity.

"Through out most of my school life, I was known as "Mute," or as the freak that didn't speak. I don't think they really care that much with what I have to say now at least."

"Well I have faith in you." Joseph tells her.

"I think at this point in time, you're the only one."

He puts his arm around her shoulder and gives her a tight squeeze.


	10. To Wipe Away Your Tears

**To Wipe Away your Tears**

Jesseina was getting ready for school. She fixed her hair and grabbed a bunch of her books. She caught up with her cousin outside. He was putting his helmet on and revving the engine on his motorcycle.

"Hey, kiddo." Joseph says to her as she walks down the front steps.

"Hey, Joe." She tells him. "You going to work?"

"Yep." He tells her. "I guess I'll see you later at dinner, huh?"

"Well I was gonna stop by Robert's after school to run lines with him, so I doubt it."

"Is that what your old man yelled at you for the other night?"

"Yeah… you heard? He is getting fed up with me and this play thing, thinks it's taking too much of my time."

"Don't worry about what he says. He's just jealous."

She shrugs.

"I guess."

"Well have a good time at school and don't be too nervous about the audition. Just do your best."

"Thank you."

Jesseina was in her math class writing notes on the board when her guidance counselor walked in and requested to speak with her out in the hallway.

"Your father and uncle requested you to leave early today." The guidance counselor was dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Jesseina could tell that she was crying.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm sorry Jesse, but your cousin Joseph was in a severe motorcycle accident this morning on his way to work."

"He's… He's alright isn't he?" Jesseina asked her. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry Jesse. The other car was just going too fast."

She didn't have to say any more.

"He's _dead_?"

"Yes."

Jesseina retreated backwards from her.

"No. Nooo." She kept saying it over and over. "Nooo. I don't believe it. I can't."

"Jesseina I'm sorry."

Neil could always hear Jessenia crying in the next room. Unfortunately, here it was a common occurrence. If only he could reach out to her to make her understand that none of this was her fault. If only Angie were here, she'd know what to say, but that was her job of course. She was sent on missions. She had the power to talk to others. He was just a spirit that was accidentally left behind. Neil didn't know how to deal with the situation any better than how he has been dealing with it. He had grown an attachment to Jesseina but he felt he is powerless to really make any changes in her life for he has not the same powers or temperament that Angie has.

Why couldn't he speak to her like Angie speaks to him? He could make things fall or pound on the walls but that was only when he was angry or scared or excited. Like the time back in the classroom and Angie accidentally knocked the pencil onto the floor and Cameron picked it up to hand it back to Keating or the time in Todd's dorm room and he flung Angie into the bookshelf and a few books fell out. It was a cause and effect. But it couldn't have that much of a change because what he was viewing already happened.

How could he prevent his own death from occurring if it already happened? Did he have enough strength to tackle himself to the ground and knock the gun out of his hand? Was everything Angie said all just a jet stream of bull coming out of her mouth, because really nothing could be done to make the situation better or was there hidden meanings in everything that he just wasn't incisive enough to seize onto?

He didn't know if Jesseina's life was in the present or if it was also a rerun of someone else's life and that everything being watched has already been watched before?

Neil walked into Jesseina's room later that day and sat down on the edge of her bed. He watched her as she lay there wiping the tears from her eyes. She usually cried herself to sleep at night and he would come here and sit and watch her until she fell asleep and then he brought the covers to her face and brushed away some of the loose strands of her hair that fell across her forehead. This time she wasn't crying because of Jack but because she lost one of her best friends.

"Angie what do I know about pain and suffering? All I have to do is look at her life and wonder what the hell I was so depressed about. No matter what, there will always be someone out there that has it worse. And I don't know what to do to help her. How can I help anyone if I can barely even help myself?" Neil rubbed his face. "Angie I'm sorry about what I said to you and how I treated you. I didn't mean it. I know you were trying to help me. I still don't know the actual reason why, but nevertheless I appreciated it. I just… I just need to know how and if I could help her? I can't sit here and watch this girl be belittled by this man or never given a chance to do what she is desired to do. I can't imagine not being able to be in a play. I know I had my father that didn't want me to be in it. But it didn't stop me from doing it. I need to talk to her. I don't care what happens to me."

Jesseina rustled throughout her bed. She was having a bad dream again. Neil bent over her and kissed her across her forehead and ran his hand over her head. She stopped moving about and sighed deeply. He got up and left her alone.

After Jesseina and Robert ran lines together a few days later, they lay in bed together. He was holding her securely in his arms.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your cousin." He wiped the tears from her eyes. "Is there anything I could do or say that would help make this situation any better?"

She turned towards him and looked him in his eyes.

"Do you love me?" She asked him. He just watched her. He couldn't say it. But she knew that he wouldn't have.

He finally took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling.

"Jesse… please don't do this now."

Jesseina slithered out from the bed shrunk away within the shadows. She stood against the wall wrapped only in bed sheets— staring out the window in vain.

The rain was falling harder now.

"Jesseina." He says her name.

She wouldn't look at him.

"Jesseina… come back to bed please?"

"I'm sorry Robert but I don't think I can at this moment."

She got dressed and left his house.


	11. Your Bruise

**Your Bruise**

_"It's a backwards attraction to your forward eyes  
But you're so farsighted that you can't place trust  
In what or who you recognize_

_"I think your bruise was understated  
'Cause you can't feel this anymore  
It's getting bluer and you can't keep faking  
That you can't feel this anymore."_

-Death Cab for Cutie

Jack sat outside in the patio. A cigarette in one hand a glass bottle of Miller in the other. The smell of sweat and alcohol seemed to vapor up from his skin into the air. He flicked down the ashes of his cigarette onto the ground. He began to bring his bottle closer toward his mouth. He was just about to take another drink.

Neil sat there watching him in disgust.

"I can't believe you call yourself a man."

Jack looked around—"What… What?? Who said that?" He began to slur his words.

Neil looked puzzled for a moment.

"You heard me?"

"You're damn right I did." Jack got up from his chair. "Stupid little cunt." He looked into the living room window eying Jesseina as she sat on the couch reading a book with the television on. "I don't need to take that _crap_ from you."

Neil realized that Jack indeed heard him mutter those words but since he couldn't see him, he assumed that it was Jesseina that said it from inside the house. This was not what he intended to happen. Jack stumbles out of his door; hair all tousled. His eyes stared out rimmed with redness. Jessiena looked baffled at him standing there.

"What the hell you doing with the light on at this hour?" He asked.

"I'm reading over my lines for the play." She told him.

"You and this play garbage. That's all you care about! Well you know what? You are never going to amount to anything! You are never going to get any part."

"If Joseph were here he wouldn't let you talk to me like that."

Jack smacked her hand and knocked the play booklet she was holding towards the ground. He preceded to tear the pages apart and toss them around the living room.

" Stop it!" She yelled. He sustained to swing and hit her against the side of the head and the back. She placed her hand against the side of her head and tried to scamper away from him.

"Leave me alone."

Jack marched over toward her and grabbed a hold of her throat. He began to shake her violently. She couldn't breathe or get away from his grip. " I pay for everything in this house! Not you!" He snarled in her face. Jessiena tried to turn her head away from him because his breath smelling of scotch and whiskey seemed to choke her as well. She felt so helpless. And so did Neil. All he could do was stand there and watch this man choke the life out of this innocent girl. "Bastard!!" Neil yelled out. "Leave her alone!! Leave her alone!!" He tried to swing at Jack but it went through him.

He was powerless, he realized but then suddenly some forced entered his body and it made him feel twice as strong. Perhaps it was Angie that joined him realizing that the situation that got way out of control. But whether it was, he knew that there was someone else in this room besides Jesseina and her father.

Neil clenched his fist tightly and struck Jack as hard as he could across his face, the force sent him flying backwards into the wall, knocking a framed picture onto his head and shattering into a million pieces.

Jesseina watched as her father lay there twisting about.

Neil looked behind him and saw Jesseina's cousin standing there. He was the one that joined Neil just before he lashed out at Jack.

"I always wanted to stay here with her but I was only allowed to visit once."

"Wait a minute… but do you mean you always wanted to stay?" Neil asked him. "Didn't you just pass away a week ago?"

Joseph kind of smirked as if he knew something that Neil did not. He turned away and disappeared through the wall.

" I can't move." She spoke out. She turned her head toward her wrist and rubbed it. "I think I fractured my wrist."

Jesseina looked at the wall. She saw a shadow of another man facing her, and she saw a blurry image approaching and knelt down to touch the side of her face.

She rubbed her eyes.

"Joseph?"

Just then as the image gradually disappeared, her uncle came running into the house.

"What the hell happened?" He asked and then lifted her up into his arms and brought her into his apartment upstairs.


	12. Stillborn Dreams

**Stillborn Dreams**

"**_One transcendental truth is the concept of trusting oneself, can be defined as the way an individual becomes self-reliant thus freeing himself from the enslavement of a society that conspires against him to conform. Confidence is having faith in one's own ideas and beliefs and acting upon these convictions. In trusting oneself one must be confident in what he or she has to offer, though society might shun it."_**

Jesseina knew that she would never reach those prospering heights that she dreamt about. There would always be some one to knock her down once she has reached her pedestal. She wasn't out there to make everyone jealous of her or promote herself as god's gift to the world but to share in the joy that everyone else seems to be benefiting from.

Perhaps it was all just a dream. And perhaps she doesn't really know what she is talking about at all. Maybe acting just wasn't her thing or writing and people have been trying to explain this politely to her all this time, so now they turned to making fun of her because that seemed to be the only way to actually get through that thick skull of hers. And she had no one to start brandishing a sword in her name or defense, so she had to take it as it came and pretend that none of it ever penetrated her armor.

That was a lie. She knew that was a lie.

It was a little easier when Joseph were still around. He at least tried to encourage her or stuck up for her. After he passed away, her father beat her to a bloody pulp and her uncle decided to move out a month later, said the memories of his son was too much for him. She begged him to take her with him, but he said it wouldn't have been right. And here she was stuck with her _dreams_—they were like stillborns—derived of chances before they were conceived. They become light weight and drifty giving the wind the advantage to lift them as they desecrated, like sugared candy washed of dye and life.

Who did she really have?

Her mother was gone.

Her cousin was gone.

Her uncle was gone.

Oh but there was _always_ Robert.

He called her up the other day not to apologize but to tell her that she was asking too much from him and that she was not really his type. It was over. Robert didn't want her. She knew that. He was only using her. It was good while it lasted, but she was a fool to believe that it actually meant more to him. But that was what we all were, fools in love— who think they are on their way of becoming the next great actor or poet, artist or composer.

Neil stood and watched Jesseina as she sat in the back of the auditorium, waiting for the names to be called out, one by one.

Robert was offered Hamlet.

Gertrude was offered to Linda.

Polonius—Jake

Reynaldo—Charlie

(A list of other roles that she didn't care for)

Alicia was offered Ophelia.

_Well there was always the costume girl._ Jessenia thought.

Costumes—Rachel.

Jessenia folded her play booklet and put it away in her bag. She got up and left before anyone could see her crying. Neil followed her out into the hallway. She stood with her back against the far wall, hidden. She could still hear bits and pieces of conversations as they erupted out into the hallway and she could see Robert and Alicia hugging now and kissing. _I hope he makes you happy. I hope you don't have to ask him if he loves you._

Jesse grabbed her bag and headed out the door.

It was 8:00 at night when woke up from her bed. She had cried herself asleep as soon as she came home from school. She placed the play booklet on her dresser and looked down at it. She dragged her fingers across the lettering. She took a framed picture and looked at it. It was her mother. Jesseina started to wipe the tears in her eyes.

"All I wanted was to be in the play. Just once to prove I could. That dream has been shattered." She put the framed picture and grabbed a white gown from her closet and put it up against her chest.

"I would have worn this for the play." She changed into it and sat in the corner of the room, sobbing into her hands.

"Jesseina." Neil tried to speak to her. I wish you could hear me. This wasn't your fault." He touched the side of her face. Jesseina got up and walked out of the room. He ran out into the hallway watching as she descends down the stairs and walks outside.

"Where is she _going_?"

He follows her.

He comes across a trestle bridge. He saw her climbing up along the side of it. Neil looked nervous now.

"Angie, is it too much to ask for your help just this once? I need her to _hear_ me. That is all I am asking. And I can't do _anything_ from down here."

Neil was now on the top of the trestle with Jesseina and he hadn't known how he got there.

Jesseina was standing on the edge, looking down at the water.

"Jesseina don't."

She stopped and looked to her left.

"What?"

She almost slips. Neil grabs her arm and pulls her back.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Neil."

"Neil?"

"I saw you walking up here and I thought to myself—what beautiful young girl has to end her life like _this_?"

"One that has no life."

"I don't believe that, not for a second."

"By the way how do you know my name?"

They both sat down on the edge now.

"I've been sent here to watch over you."

"Are you like some stalker or something? I know I should be a little more freaked out right now about how you know my name and all but with this day I had, I really don't give a damn."

"I guess I am like an angel. I don't really know yet."

"You don't _know_?"

"Its long story."

"Um. Ok." She looks confused. "Whatever floats your boat."

"But I mean seriously, is it necessary to take your life over people who never cared for you when you were alive and probably wouldn't even when you were dead? Sometimes the world is too occupied and selfish to let you stop and breathe. But you have to tell them you are here and you are taking a piece of that "jigsaw puzzle." It belongs to you. It's your gift from god. In fact all of us—as soon as we're born all have a puzzle piece that we have to fit in place. The fact of "living," is to make yourself alive and follow your dreams. Let it be known. Scream out your name if you have to and don't stop till you make their ears bleed. They'll lprobably listen then." Neil explains.

"How do you know?"

"Because eventually everyone runs out of cotton to stick in their ears."

"Um alright."

"And that guy _Robert_…I mean who cares if he couldn't see how perfect you were for him. It's his loss—."

"Have you ever had your heart broken?"

"Rhetorically, yes."

"How so?"

"I was denied my one true love."

"A girl?"

"Not actually a girl…or a person for that matter, just something I felt strongly about, but was denied."

"I'm sorry."

He helped her down from the trestle bridge and they walked back home.

"I'll let you in a little secret about boys, Jess. Sometimes they don't know what they have until they loose it and then they will always kick themselves in the ass over their mistakes. But Jesseina don't make this _mistake_ now. None of the things you are going through is worth it. Believe me. I know first hand. Joseph would agree with me."

Jesseina throws her arms around Neil and gives him a big bear hug.

"Thank you."

She saw a car pull up in the front of her house, her uncle came out.

"What are you doing here?" Jesseina asked him.

"Pack your bags... you are coming to live with me."

Neil woke up back at Whelton. He was sitting in a class room, but it was empty. What happened? Was it all a dream? Everything? Where is _Jesseina_?

He saw a woman dressed in white. Her back was facing towards him.

"Angie! It worked. Jesseina didn't jump from the bridge. Everything worked out for the better. She is going to live with her uncle. I talked to her. I am sorry Angie. I am sorry for not believing in you or myself. I understand what you were trying to explain to me now."

He touched her arm.

Angie or what he thought was Angie turned to face him. It was a grotesque demon like she-devil with snakes spiting up from her head. One came out and bite Neil on his hand.

"What the hell?"

The she devil pointed to a teacher sitting at desk. The room was empty. It was Keating. After a moment he gets up and walks over to Neil's desk. Opening it, he finds his copy of "Five Centuries of Verse" and flips through the first few pages. Sitting down at the desk, he returns to the opening page, reading the opening verse written there. Keating begins to sob, then closes the book.

"Mr. Keating?" Neil eyes were watering down his cheeks like a fountain. "I'm sorry."

_"All my life_

_Thy light shall surely follow me_

_And in God's house forevermore_

_My dwelling place shall be_

_Amen."_

"The death of Neil Perry is a tragedy. He was a fine student. One of Whelton's best. And he will be missed..." Mr. Nolan says.

Neil comes to a scene where Charlie is pissed off a Cameron for blabbing to Nolan about the Dead Poets Society and ratting out Mr. Keating ,because he felt that he was responsibility for Neil's death. Cameron said it wasn't for Mr. Keating brainwashing him, Neil would be cozied up in his room right now, studying his chemistry and dreaming of being called doctor.

"That's not true, Cameron. You know that. Neil loved acting." Todd tells him.

"Believe what you want, but I say let Keating fry. I mean, why ruin our lives?" Cameron asks.

Neil watched as Charlie Dalton lunge after Cameron and punch him across the face.

Charlie lunges at Cameron again and punches him in the face. Cameron falls to the floor as the boys pull Charlie away. Cameron lifts a hand to his bloody nose.

It is a snowy, overcast morning. Todd walks through the snow. He has his coat on over his pajamas. The other boys follow closely behind him as he walks down towards the water. He stops and stares out at the snow-covered surroundings.

"It's so beautiful."

Todd begins to gag and then goes down on his knees, vomiting into the snow. The other boys huddle around him, hugging him. Todd pushes himself away from the boys and stumbles down the hill, slipping and falling in the snow.

"Neillllllllllll!!" He screamed out his friend's name. "Neilllllllllllllll!!"

The boys watch as Todd runs down towards the dock by the river, yelling and crying.

Neil starts running through the snow. He grabs a hold of Todd's back and holds him tightly.

"Todd. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please forgive me."


	13. Another Day in Paradise

**Another Day in Paradise **

Neil saw a homeless man sitting on a hill. He was a grizzly sort of man with a long beard that touched the top of his shirt. His teeth were old and rotted but he still managed to eat an apple and chew it. His clothes had more holes evidently than a piece of swiss cheese. He was reading from a book, when Neil walked passed him, he recites the line. "Oh Captain, My Captain."

Neil looked at him.

"Excuse me? Did you say oh, captain, my captain?"

"No boy. I said Oh Sergeant, my sergeant. Do you have wax in your ears?"

"No." Neil says.

"Well than do you know where it comes _from_?"

"It's a poem by Walt Whitman." Neil tells him. "It was about Abraham Lincoln."

"Very good. You study hard. You go to Welton too I bet?"

"I used to."

"I used to too." The old man says. "I used to teach there. And in my class you had the option on calling me by my teacher name… or if you were slightly more daring, Oh _Captain_ my captain."

"Mr. _Keating_?"

Neil saw Todd now standing on his desk looking at Mr. Keating as he stood in the doorway. It was Todd that yelled out Oh Captain, my captain before Mr. Keating left forever. Neil watched the pain in Mr. Keating's face and yet still managed to smile.

"Thank you." He told them all.

_God. If it wasn't for me. You would still be teaching._

Neil turned away.

"I have seen enough. Get me back! Get me back to my life and my friends. I want to _live_ again."

Neil fell down to his knees and held his hand over his face.

"I want to live again. Please, God. Let me live again."

The Demon stood in front of him again. Neil faced her.

"Leave me alone! I don't want to see anymore! I know everything is screwed up because of me. Everyone's lives were affected by my death. But everything you are showing me now is nothing that I wouldn't have figured out on my own or with Angie. What else do you want from me? What else is _there_?"

They were standing in front of his father's house now. From where he was situated in the snow he could see right into his room. The window was opened. He saw Angie standing there looking out into nothingness.

"Angie?" Neil called out her name. She was standing in her white dress and bent down and picked up a circle of thorns and placed them on the top of her head. She turned around and started to head down the stairs. Neil walked into his house and followed her. "Angie, where are you going?"

She entered his father's office and bent down along the ground, twirling a shiny key in her hand. She opened the safe.

Neil walked into the office and saw her.

"Angie. Thank god. I have been _looking_ all over for you. You have no idea what I went through… I understand now what you have been trying to…" He stopped and looked at what she held in a while cloth on his father's desk. She started to slowly unravel it. Neil looked down at what she held in her hand. It was his father's gun. He watched her raise the gun to her own head.

"Angie, what are you _doing_?"

"It's the only way." Angie tells him.

"What is?"

"I'm in pain now and I want to escape it. You want your life back. So then we can swap. I die. You live."

"Don't do this."

"Why not?"

"It's not the answer."

"But who would care if I live or die?"

"I'd _care_! I can't let you do this to yourself."

"How can you convince me of something I could hardly convince _you_?"

"I'm convinced! Ok? That's why I came in here! To tell you that I understand now. Just put the gun down."

"I failed you. I failed my mission. I left you in charge of a girl that could have hurt herself." Angie had tears falling down her face now.

"But she didn't. I helped her." Neil walked closer to her. "Just put the gun back in the safe and walk away."

"I don't think I can Neil. I don't think I am strong enough."

"But you are." He reached the front of the desk. "Don't you remember what Keating said about seizing the day and the allegory of the cave? You have to make the best of it and not let anyone make you think that you don't deserve what you want. You want your wings and you'll _get_ them."

"But Keating isn't my teacher." Angie told him.

"He is now. I'm letting you borrow him."

"He was a great teacher." Angie said. "He taught you well."

"And so have you." Neil slid along the side of the desk and was facing her. "Don't make the same mistake that I did. Put the gun away."

Angie watched him as he started to walk closer. She still held the gun.

"I'm sorry Neil— _there's_ no going back." She clicked the top of the gun and raised it again. Neil knocks it out from her hand, the gun goes off and the bullet hits the ceiling. Neil held Angie's wrists tightly now, as she struggles to reach for the gun on the floor.

He pushes her against the wall. After a moment of watching each other in silence, Neil clasps his hands over her face and begans to kiss her. His mouth moved over hers feverishly—his tongue pushing down into her throat. Like a magnet it pulled each other's bodies together. He held her tightly around her neck now pushing her closer against his chest. But then something broke them apart. Perhaps it was Neil's father bursting through the door at that moment because he heard a peculiar sound of a gun going off. Perhaps it was the realization that this would lead to more and more was not an option in either case.

"Neil? Neil?" His father looked around his office. "What was that noise? Neil where are _you_?"

Both of their hearts were pounding rapidly in their chests. Neil grabbed Angie's arm and pulls her along. "We need to get out of here."

They stood outside of his house now. Neil reached for her again. She pulled away.

"Neil. We… We _can't_ do this."

Neil rested his forehead up against hers.

"I know. Angie. I'm sorry. But because of "you," I now know what my _purpose is_. And it has all been _inspired_ by you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Angie for yelling at you and treating you the way I did. I didn't want you to _go_. And I don't want you to go now."

"Neil I understand."

"How could you not expect me to have _feelings_ for you after all of this?" He asked her.

"Neil I didn't expect you not to, but we can't have a normal life together. Not here. Not now at least."

"But I just want to stay with you."

"If you don't go back you will be stuck in limbo. You won't see me again or _your_ friends. I didn't help you all this time for you to be stuck here. You don't deserve that. _Please_." She looked nervous. "Listen to me now."

"Alright. Fine I will do this for you. What do I have to _do_?"

"Ok Neil. Say my name."

Neil looked confused.

"What? It's Angie."

"No. That's the name you gave me. What _was_ my real name? My human name?"

"Is this a trick question?"

"Neil please concentrate."

"I don't know it. You never told me what it was."

"If you listen to yourself, then you'll realize that you do. You _helped_ her just as you helped me before in your father's office. Say it Neil. Before it's too late."

"Angie. Please don't leave…"

"Say it. Neil! Say it!"

She started to fade away.

Neil leaps up from a chair where he had fallen asleep. "You can't leave yet! I haven't given you a name!"

Todd had his nose in a book and looked over at Neil.

"Um alright. My name is Todd and I'm not going anywhere."

Knox was on the phone with Chris.

"I'm Knox and I'm on the phone with Chris, so be quiet."

"I'm Charlie Dalton and I got my ass paddled really hard the other day by an old man. It was pretty fucking embarrassing."

"Those two freaks are Meeks and Pitts. They are playing around with a radio thingy or something and it's frigging annoying the hell out of me." Knox complains. "All those static sounds. I can't hear Chris utter a single sound of her love for me."

"What? She hasn't hung up on you yet?" Todd laughs.

Neil sat down in the chair again and rubbed his face.

"I killed myself because my father wouldn't let me in the play and this angel was leading me through scenes of my life, explaining why it was a mistake and all the impacts I had on you guys. And Keating gets fired because my father tried to blame my death on his influence and Cameron ratted us out to Nolan over the Dead Poets Society."

"That weasel." Charlie says.

"Shit. All of this was in your dream?" Todd looked scared.

"You know what your problem is Perry, you worry too much about what other people think." Knox finally blurts out. "You have to do what is _right_ for you."

"You're right."

"Who did you need the name for?" Charlie asks.

"The angel."

"Was she hot?" Charlie smirks.

"You have no _idea_."

Neil took a deep breath.

"I need a name quick. If I don't I'll never have a second chance."

"Damnit, Neil. If you want to borrow it then say so. Just call her _Nuwanda_." Charlie jokes.

Neil jumped up from his seat.

"Charlie that's genius."

Neil jumped on the bed knocking Knox onto the floor. He accidentally hangs up on Chris.

"Shit Neil!"

He runs out into the hallway.

"It's great to be alive!! Carpie Diem!!"

Cameron walked up to him. "Hey Neil. Are you going to help me with my trig _later_?"

Neil punches Cameron in the face and he fell onto the floor.

"What the _hell_ was that for?"

"Because you deserved it! Yeah!"

Neil Perry continues to run down the hallway.

He passes by Mr. Nolan's office.

"Mr. Nolan."

He greeted Perry with a nod and a smile.

"Good day son."

Neil shakes his hand.

"Thank You Mr. Nolan for everything you have done for me. And that speech you gave in my honor was very touching."

"What speech, son?"

"Oh never mind that."

"Well I'd just like to wish you luck in the play."

"Play?" Neil asked. "Oh right. The play I am going to be doing at Henley Hall. A Mid Summer's Night dream. Sorry I've been practicing my lines all night. I am little over tired."

"Well make sure you get all the rest you need. Don't over exert yourself. Your father and Mr. Keating wouldn't want that."

"Oh right. Right." Neil nods. "My Captain!" Neil shouts.

Nolan looked at him strangely.

"What my _boy_?"

"Oh sorry. I meant Keating. I need to see him. Talk to you later, Nolan."

He ran down the hallway.

"Very charming boy but seems a bit over strung sometimes."

"Oh Captain my Captain!" Neil jumps into hallway.

"Neil, my boy. How have you been?"

"Never been _better_."

Neil lightly punches Keating on his shoulder.

"I bet you are hyped for the play aren't you?

"You bet I am."

"Have you talked to your father like we discussed?"

"Yes I did."

"And is he letting you finally do it?"

"No he is _not_. If I go through with it, he is going to send me away to torture me in medicine."

"You got to be kidding me."

"It's alright. Mr. Keating. I know… the outcome. And I am ready to face it. No matter what happens to me. I will live my dream."

"But Neil your father is going to send you away. I can't let him do that to you. It's absurd. I never heard of a father so destined to ruin his child's dreams."

"I don't really care what he says or thinks. I'm not going anywhere. He can't force me. Remember what you said about the Allegory of the cave?"

"Yes."

"It was about prisoners not being able to see their future because they were being held from it. I was a prisoner. My father wouldn't let me see the light that was waiting for me. But I let him all this time. I have to face him now."

"Let me talk to him." Keating said. "I think he needs to hear it from an adult as well."

"I don't want you to loose your job getting involved or anything like that. Teaching means the world to you."

"You mean the world to me. Your dreams mean the world to me. If I had a son…I would have wished him to be just like you."

"You were the best teacher I've ever had." Neil said. "I mean _are_."

"Thank you." Keating looked like he was about to choke up. "Alright. Neil you better get some rest. I don't want Puck to fall asleep on stage."

"He won't I promise." Neil smiles at him.

Neil lay in his dorm room bed looking up at the ceiling. He couldn't stop thinking about Angie and everything that she did for him. He heard the bell tolls.

"Angie must have gotten her wings." He says with a chuckle.

"What?" Todd turned over and looked at him.

"Sorry, just talking in my sleep."

"Alright." Todd turned over again.

He had prayed to Angie, thanking her again. But deep down he still felt that there was something missing. He never actually had to say her name, but he knew what it was. He really didn't have to say it out loud. But he also couldn't get the image of their last moments together in his father's office and outside. He's never felt that strongly about anyone before. And all this time he thought that theater was his one true love? But how can he fall for someone that may or may not have been _real_? Perhaps this all was just a dream, like Knox suggested because he was letting everything and everyone drive him crazy.


	14. Center Stage

Sorry for the delay. Hope you enjoy ;-)

**Center Stage**

Keating was dressed in a nice suit and tie. He wanted to look impressive tonight. He was after all undertaking to speak with Mr. Perry, Neil's father. And something told him that Mr. Perry wasn't very impressed with his prior influence on his son. When he noticed that Neil's father was standing in the back of the auditorium with his hands folded tightly under his armpits, he got up from his seat.

"Excuse me." He says. Todd and Charlie stood up to let him pass. He stood next to Mr. Perry and then turned to face him.

"You must be so proud of everything Neil's accomplished here at Welton. And I'm sure he'll have more great years to come."

"Not if I have anything to say about it. I am taking Neil out so he can have a chance to study medicine and stop with this play nonsense."

"So it is true." Keating said.

"What is?"

"That you only had children to make _yourself_ look successful."

"What the hells is that supposed to mean and who are you to make any judgments, especially when you haven't even properly introduced yourself?"

"Oh sorry. Aren't you Mr. Perry?" Keating directs his hand in his direction. Mr. Perry looks at him as if he had a loose screw.

"I'd say we established that already. Now kindly tell me who you are."

"I thought the mystery of it was more suitable." Keating jokes with him.

"I'm Mr. John Keating. I am one of Neil's teachers." Mr. Perry shakes his hand.

"Ah yes. He's mentioned you." He states not that he seemed that impressed with it. "You're the teacher that put all this screwed up ideas in his head about acting."

"And you're the father that disapproves of his son's dream. I guess when you were growing up you had to listen to everything your father said, didn't you?"

"And look what it got me."

Keating smugly replies.

"It got you a son that you won't let breathe."

"Now don't tell me—"

"No you listen to me. I don't care whose father you are or whether or not you approve of my influence on Neil Perry, but I will see that you will not mess with my student's future. I'll see to it."

"Neil doesn't know what is best for him and neither do you. You're just another underpaid teacher that feels obligated to teach these kids poetry and garbage like that and where does it get anyone? Medicine is where his life is not pretending to be a fairy on stage."

"Mr. Perry, poetry is the fruit of life. Do you know what "Carpie Diem," means?"

"Do you think I am an idiot? It means seize the day."

"Very good son. You get a gold star and a pat on the back."

"Don't patronize me, Mr. Keating."

"Oh I'm not the bully here, sir. See your son on that stage? He's full of life. He's vibrant. Alive. But once he leaves, that glow will disappear because his ankles will be shackled together. You see Mr. Perry, perhaps Neil doesn't always know what's best for him now but it's kind of hard for anyone to imagine a life for themselves when the light at the other tunnel is always hidden from view. Think about it sir. Go home and read The Allegory of the Cave, maybe you'll finally get it."

Keating goes to sit back next to Todd Anderson and Charlie Dalton. Mr. Perry leaves the auditorium.

After the play was over Neil looked around for his father but he couldn't find him.

"Where did my father go?"

"I don't know. He just left." Charlie shrugs.

"Jesus, I can't believe your father couldn't even stay through the whole play." Knox replies. "That was so disrespectful."

"Neil you were amazing." Todd pats him on the back.

"Thanks."

Cameron looked over his should at Neil as he was talking to Nolan.

"I'd congratulate you too but I'm afraid you're just going to punch me in the face again."

"No I'll save that for Nuwanda." Neil jokes. "When you're an actor you have the privilege of having other people do the dirty work for you."

Cameron shakes his head and turns away.

Keating walked up to Neil.

"If anything happens at home with your father you call me and I will come pick you up."

"Alright."

Neil called for a cab and went home. He walked into his father's study. He found his father sitting in his desk reading something but he looked like he had been crying before.

"Dad… are you alright?"

He put a ribbon to mark the spot he left off and closed the book before his son could see the title. He looked up at his son standing in the doorway holding the thorns he had on his head over his chest. "Have you been crying? Dad, listen. I am sorry if I offended you or if Mr. Keating offended you, but I think it's time that I tell you what I feel." Neil said.

"I think it is about time you _have_."

Neil looked a little confused.

"What?"

"Neil you are and I are so similar. Have I ever told you that?"

"Not really."

"I'm sure you don't believe me but I wanted to be an actor just like you did."

"You _did_?"

"Yes."

"Then what stopped you?"

"Your grandfather." He admitted.

Neil took a seat so he could listen to his father closely.

"The theater was my solace and my father took that away from me. He wanted me to go into his business. I swore I would never be like him when it was my chance to get married and have children of my own, but look--here you are feeling the same way I once did. Feeling like you have no meaning in your life."

His father could hardly look his son in the face.

"I was jealous of your passion Neil. I am a horrible person and a father."

Neil stood up and faced him.

"No dad. No. Don't say that. You just wanted what was best for me."

"You know what is best for you Neil. I'm sorry I doubted your judgment."

"Come on dad. Let's go to a nice restaurant with mom. There is no need to sit around here and dwell on the past. Let's celebrate the future and that everyone is here and healthy."

"I'd never thought that my own son would be the one to teach me."

Neil, his father and his mother all went to a really nice restaurant in town that night to celebrate. Neil's father made a toast.

"To our son's future in acting."

"Thanks dad." Neil smiles at him.

After desert and as they stood outside the restaurant talking about the past and the future, and enjoying the brisk air, a man dressed in black with a mask over his face approached them bearing a gun.

"Give me your money!"

"Shit we're getting mugged." Neil's father says.

"Give me your goddam money before I shoot you all."

"Just give him the money." Neil's mother was frantic.

"Alright. Alright."

They all searched for it. Neil and his father checked their wallets; his mother looked through her purse.

"Hurry it up. I don't have all day."

"Here this is all we have." Mr. Perry tells him.

"It's not enough." He raises his gun at Neil's father.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Neil jumps in front of his father just as the gun goes off.

They both fall toward the ground.

The mugger ran off.

"Honey! Oh my god are you alright?" Mr. Perry's wife kneels by them.

Neil was lying next to his father. His father placed his hand on the ground and felt something wet. He looked up at his hand.

"This is blood."

Neil was crying.

"Dad… dad. I hurt. My chest hurts."

"Neil you've been shot."

The waitress and the manager from the restaurant they just dined at stood outside looking at them.

"My son has just been shot. Call for an ambulance." He tells them.


	15. An Answer to an Angel's Prayer

It has been great writing for this story, I hope you enjoy it as much as I loved writing it. Thanks again for reading. :-)

**An Answer to an Angel's Prayer.**

"I'll remember the love that you gave me  
Now that I'm standing on my own  
I'll remember the way that you saved me  
I'll _remember_."

- "Broken Wings"

Neil opened his eyes for a second to find himself on a stretcher being pulled through a hallway under flashing lights. He turns to his left and sees his father, Mr. Keating, his Mother, Charlie Dalton, Todd Anderson, Knox Overstreet and Chris running along side him.

"Neil everything is going to be alright." His father says. "You're going to be ok." Neil wanted to ask questions, but he couldn't. He had oxygen over his noise and mouth.

"Be strong Neil." Todd tells him. "Be strong."

His mind was racing a million miles a minute and there words were drowning out and becoming sluggish and slow, like when a cassette players battery is dying and the music starts playing funny.

The windows opened up by themselves in Neil's hospital room. He was asleep now in his bed. A diamond like star appeared in the sky. It glowed bright and moved closer and closer towards the window, enveloping the room with its prominent white light. An angel is now flying towards the building with giant feathery wings on her back. She tiptoed over towards Neil's hospital bed where he lay peaceful in his sleep. She circles the bed looking adoringly down at his boy like features and runs her fingers through his hair. He started to wake up and opened his eyes.

He smiles at her.

"I like your wings." He tells her.

"Thank you."

"It's kind of crazy how things turn out." He sort of chuckles. "Just when my father allows me to act, I get shot by a stupid mugger."

"You saved your father's life. You did a very heroic thing, Neil."

"I love my father."

"I know you do."

"Does everyone get you when it's their time to go?" He asked her.

She shook her head.

"Good I'd be _jealous_." He jokes.

She smiles at him.

"Angie." Neil says her name.

"Yes?"

"Was Jesseina _you_?"

She nods.

Neil had tears in his eyes. He closes them tight.

"Neil, why are you crying?"

"I just can't help to feel like such a selfish person. I was too busy worrying about how my life sucked I didn't have the time to see that there were others out there that had it worse."

"Sometimes it's hard for people to see anyone else's pain because it's difficult enough trying to deal with their own."

"So you really did jump from the bridge didn't you?"

"Don't worry about that. That's in the past Neil. What matters now is today."

"Do you want me to call you _Jesseina_?"

"No. That was a part of my past. My name is Angie now. It's the name you gave me. And everything I went through was worth it, because in the end it brought me to you."

Neil swallowed nervously as he looked at her, remembering the first time they met and the last moments in his father's office.

"I'm sorry we didn't get to spend more time together." He moved her closer towards him and touches the side of her face. "There's so much I wanted to share with you." He brought her closer. "Angie. I _love_ you."

Tears slid down her face as he kissed her.

When Neil fell limp in her arms, Angie closed her eyes and shook her head.

_No. Not now. Don't let me take him now. Please. Please. Don't. He has so much to live for. So much._

She cradled him in his arms as her wings and a white unearthly light enclosed over him.

Everyone sat impatiently in the lobby waiting to hear about Neil's progressives. The doctor finally came into the room. Neil's father stood up and walked right over.

"How is he?"

"The bullet thankfully did not pierce his heart but it did shatter a bone in his rib and lodged itself there. We were able to remove that without any complications. But right now he is critical condition; Neil lost a lot of blood through the process but you have it on my highest authority that he will pull through."

Charlie smirks and nods. "Perry is a trooper."

"Always has been." Knox says.

"Carpie Diem."

"Sieze the day." Todd says.

"My son saved my life." Mr. Perry says. He started crying and his wife threw her arms over her shoulder.

"Can we see him?" Chris asked sitting next to Knox.

"Tomorrow will be best. He needs to rest now."

Neil woke up and saw a bunch of his classmates standing in his room. Charlie, Todd, Meeks, Pitts, Knox, Chris—even Cameron.

"Am I dead?" Was the first thing he asked

"You look pretty alive to me." Meeks said.

"What happened?"

"You got shot." Charlie tells him.

"Yeah that sucked." Neil said.

"I know you hate me and are probably wondering why I am here, but everyone was going to see you and I decided to jump on the band wagon." Cameron jokes. "So don't strain yourself to punch me in the face again."

"You're not the one that shot me." Neil tells him.

"He could have." Knox makes a point. "The guy was wearing a mask."

"Cameron needs a mask?" Charlie laughs.

"Shut up Dalton."

"I thought I died. The angel was here to take me back." Neil said.

"Wow you really have a thing for angels don't you?" Todd says.

"Well call this ironic, but there _is_ a rather large white feather in the window." Pitts points out.

"That could have just flown in by accident." Knox says.

"Give me it." Neil says. Meeks grabs it before it flew out and hands it to Neil. He took it and held it against his face. "_Angie_." He whispers her name.

"Guys I know he's been through a lot. But do you think he is taking this "angel," thing a little too far?" Cameron whispers. "It's _creepy_."

"Who cares? He is here and he is alive. That's all that matters."

Todd walked over and sat on Neil's bed.

"I heard that Keating spoke to your father."

"He did. And whatever he said must have really gotten through to him, because he is allowing me to act now."

"Wow. Keating is the man." Charlie says.

"I guess sometimes some people need to hear it from another adult." Knox says.

It wasn't long till Neil was well enough to go back to Welton. It was great to finally be back in his dorm and actually be setting it up again and not packing up and leaving for medical school. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a white feather. He took out a photo album; he kept while he was at Welton and taped it inside.

"Thanks Angie."

Todd and Charlie ran into the dorm room now.

"Hey Neil… the auditions are going on right now at Henley Hall. Are you going to try out?" Todd asks.

"Of course." He closed the album and walked out into the hallway.

Cameron caught up with them.

"Hey Perry. Good to see you back." Nolan says as they pass him.

"Thanks Sir."

"I heard they hired some new student director. Some girl. The guys are all swooning, over her." Cameron says.

"To swoon is the Dead Poet's Society way." Charlie remarks.

"I don't swoon over girls." Todd remarks. "I'm not Knox."

"I don't either." Neil says. "Theater is after all my one true love."

The student that was always sick, and blowing his noise, sneezed over Meeks shoulder as they walked down the hall.

"Gosh, do you mind? I'd like to get through the semester without catching any infectious diseases."

Neil, Charlie, Todd, and Cameron stood in the auditorium. Neil held his booklet tightly in his hand.

"You have no idea how good it feels to be back here." He mutters.

"I can't wait to see the student director." Cameron points to the front. "She's so hot."

"Get over yourself. You think she'd want you when she can have me?" Charlie remarks. "No girl can resist the power of Nuwanda."

"Are all of you auditioning today?" A girl's voice asked behind them.

They all turn around and see her standing with a list.

"Only he is." They point to Perry.

Neil saw the girl as she walked towards him. He dropped his book on the ground when she approached him.

"Hello—"She puts her hand out. "I am—"

"Angie." He says.

"Wow. Good guess. How did you _know_?"

"You're an _angel_." He tells her.

"Great." Cameron slaps his forehead. "You have to forgive my friend here. He's had a rough week. Got shot and hit his head pretty hard and he keeps seeing little angels flying above his head instead of birdies."

"Yeah he almost died. But he pulled through all right." Charlie adds.

"Then it was an answer to an angel's prayer." The girl smiles at Neil. She kisses him on the cheek and says whispering in his ear. _"I guess I got a leave of absence for good behavior." _

She left Neil standing there speechless.

"Neil I think I need to try your way of getting girls." Charlie says.


End file.
